Renewed Health Supply's Blog

Ryan and I have been in the health arena since 1998.  We started Renewed Health Supply before we were even married and I was still in college.

Having lived in the alternative health space for almost 20 years, we have experienced quite a bit.  We have lived a healthy lifestyle that whole time, even before it was the cool thing to do.

Until recently, we were happy with our supplements, our water, our air, and our diets.  What was missing was a fitness piece.

Fast forward to January of 2016.  Our youngest child was 1 year old and we were living a pretty sedentary lifestyle.  I was still holding all my pregnancy weight and was very unhappy.  As a busy mom of 3, going to the gym wasn't an option.  I needed to find something I could do from home.

We looked around a little and that is when we found Beachbody.  I started with PIYO and quickly transitioned to Focus T25.  This intense cardio program is made up of 25 minute workouts that I could do while the baby napped.

Since then I have finished a couple rounds of T25 and some of the other programs and have lost 40 lbs.

While I was looking to primarily lose weight, Ryan was looking for some strength and flexibility.  What better way to do that than incorporate yoga into his daily routine.  Ryan also runs a very tight schedule and so these 30 - 45 minute yoga programs that he could do in our office worked perfectly for him as well.

Now that I am at my goal weight and living this life of health AND fitness, it only made sense to add Health and Fitness coaching to the ways that our family can help people become healthier versions of themselves.

So what does that mean for you, our valued Renewed Health Supply customers?  It means that we now have an additional service we can offer.  We can help you get started with your workout plans today. And since Beachbody offers so many different programs, we can custom fit a program to you.

You can fillout this form or you can email Tracey directly at tracey@renewedhealth.com.

Having been in business since 1998, we have noticed a large number of trends that have come and gone in the natural/alternative health circle. We have seen everything from some new exotic fruit that will supposedly cure your woes (Noni, mangosteen, acai,) to electrical devices that can supposedly cure cancer, to diets that run from raw vegan to paleo or high fat to no fat or low carb to no carb. Lots of absurdity peppered with some truth.

The most distressing of all is that we constantly see people chasing after and spending good money on what is often nothing more than sexy marketing at the expense of embracing proven/time tested health benefitting concepts and products. Maybe there is something about American culture that results in the masses being distracted by the latest and greatest next miracle fix or maybe it is a universal phenomenon.

In 2016 our encouragement to you would be to focus on finding the truth in all areas. There are hard truths in this world that apply, whether we embrace them or not. Here is my best advice I can give to help you start creating a new and healthier you.

We know that populations that have higher exposure to chemicals suffer compared to those in cleaner environments.

1. Clean out your chemical exposure by buying organic produce.
2. Get a good air purifier and put in quality furnace filters.
3. Buy bed linens and at least a mattress cover that isn’t treated with fire retardants. At minimum buy an organic pillow and pillow case.
4. Use truly green cleaning products.

We know that diet really does matter.

1. Focus on nutrient rich food but don’t forget that they still contain calories.
2. Drink clean water, ideally distilled water, as the $8 filter on your fridge isn’t even close to adequate to get the industrial/pharmaceutical/chemical slurry out of your water.
3. Eat more veggies. This might mean that you learn how to cook. Ask a vegetarian for ideas, as they certainly are not eating the volumes of steamed cabbage you may think they are but rather know how to make tasty veggies.
4. Replace your salt and cooking oils with nutrient rich celtic sea salt and high polyphenol extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil.
5. Stop drinking low grade non organic coffee, lower your alcohol consumption or at least choose organic red wine when possible. Maybe even switch over to high quality green teas as we have grown to LOVE them and they really do have hard science supporting their benefits.
6. Color does really matter.  When you look at your plate you should see the rainbow. Different colors of food include different phytonutrients.  Include a variety.

We know that exercise makes a difference but it can’t make up for poor diet and lifestyle choices.

1. Find something that you enjoy.
2. Don’t ruin your joints in your choice.
3. Remember that flexibility, blood flow, muscular strength, and regularity are all important.
4. Keep in mind that exercise increases the circulation of what is in your blood stream whether it is nutrients or toxins.

We know that detoxifying the body is really important. We have found that after all these years in business that maybe 1 out of every 200 of our customers is interested in cleansing the body properly. If you expect to live a long and healthy life don’t neglect this area.

1. Use herbs to get your liver cleaned out and restored.
2. Incorporate intermittent fasting.
3. Get sweaty, saunas are legitimate and powerful ways to detox.
4. Move your lymph whether through rebounding, a chi machine, or regular massage.

We know that the mind and soul need nourishment. I can say that 99% of our customers are pleasant individuals and that folks that tend to focus on a healthy lifestyle are more disposed to pleasantness. Be aware of the fact that stress isn’t bad. In fact it makes us strong.  It builds fortitude. But don’t let it destroy you. In fact, find ways to nurture and stretch yourselves. A sermon at church that convicts and speaks to your soul should not be avoided but embraced. When God’s voice albeit difficult to hear at times seems to be calling at you from multiple angles; listen. Avoiding issues or ugly truths will destroy your health and your soul over time.

We know that there is profound power within the time tested tonic herbs and superfoods. Ginseng, reishi, cod liver oil, algae, schizandra and countless others are powerful and restorative compounds. They have to be quality, concentrated, and significant enough in dose to impart benefit to the body but when used correctly are the single most beneficial substances one can utilize. Don’t waste your time and money on some multi-level product marketed by a friend at the expense of using proven tonic/superfoods.

Finally, we know that our choices really do matter. Be empowered by the fact that all of you reading this have access to everything mentioned in this article. You should also be empowered by knowing that there are others out here and science that has validated these choices. Count yourself in the tiny ranks of humanity that have the ability to see the big picture and that you aren’t putting your life into a random mixing bowl of probability but are daily shifting towards either better or worse health in large part through your own choices. Most of all have fun. If you are going to make the shift then own it, get excited about it, don’t look towards others for validation or see yourself as an outcast but be who you want to be and try to help others when they ask or are open to it.

Don't feel overwhelmed by the fads.  Just start with what we know.

Happy and Healthy New Year!

We recently wrote about the benefits of juicing.  We know that a juicer is an investment.  When purchasing a juicer, make sure that you find one that can be used for multiple purposes.  Not only will it make the investment more economical, but it will be another way to get healthy foods into your diet.

At Renewed Health Supply, we carry the Champion Juicer.  The Champion Juicer has a solid piece that can be subbed in for the juicing screen.  This allows you to use the Champion Juicer more as a grinder.  There is also a homogenizing body that can be purchased to turn the Champion Juicer into a grinder.

When the Champion Juicer is turned into a grinder, it can be used to make things like baby food and nut butters.  Why not use it to make your next batch of hummus.  Since it homogenizes, it is a better choice for a smoother consistency.  The powerful motor of the Commercial Champion juicer means that your food will be heated less than your average blender of food processor, thus leaving more of the nutrients in your food.

Check out this video for a few recipes and examples.

In addition to using the Champion Juicer to homogenize foods like nuts and beans, you can use the grain mill attachment to make flours.  But what is the benefit of grinding your own flours? First of all, you need to think about the freshness of the flour.  Do you ever worry about how long the flour has been on the shelves of the grocery store?  When you grind your own flour, you can know how long it has been around and can guarantee freshness.  Are you gluten free?  You can make flour out of all different kinds of grains.  Try grinding garbanzos to make garbanzo bean flour.  Never worry about gluten contamination when you have the control of the equipment that makes the flours.

All of these extra functions are great uses of the Champion Juicer, but don't forget to keep on juicing!

Juicing is more than just the latest health craze, it’s good for your body and it can be fun experimenting with different fruits and vegetables. But, before you run to the store and grab a fancy stainless juicer, it’s important to understand why you should be juicing in the first place. First and foremost, it allows for faster absorption of essential nutrients into the body because there is no fiber blocking these nutrients. Juicing provides you with a super abundance of critical minerals and vitamins, all in a cup. For example, you’d need to consume pounds of carrots or a dozen apples just to get the same concentration of nutrients as you would get from one cup of juice.

Juicing also helps you to get nutrients from fruits or vegetables you may not always consume. Vegetables like spinach, kale, or beets are good for you, but some of us may not like eating them. Try camouflaging their taste by juicing them with sweeter fruits to make sure you get your daily serving of veggies.

You’ll shortly realize that from introducing more healthy juices into your diet, you’re not only feeling more energetic, but also craving healthier food habits. The more good you put into your body, the better you feel. Additionally, introducing wholesome juices into your diet will make youreevaluate your diet all around, resulting in better food choices.

Lastly, juicing is fun! There’s so many different recipes and combinations that you will never be bored. The possibilities are endless, however, it’s important to invest in a good quality juicer, like one from Champion, to ensure you get the most out of your fruits and vegetables. Enjoy your new juicing adventure!

Water filters of all types, from simple carafe types, to carbon block, all the way to the highest quality reverse osmosis filters all have limitations. Filters require openings for the water to pass through. A filter that may capture 98% of lead in the water, may in turn remove 5% of the arsenic present.

Water distillers on the other hand work in a very different way. As a result they have the highest effectiveness in removing contaminates of any technology available. Water distillers not only remove organic contaminants but also radioactive isotopes, pharmaceutical traces in the water supply (of which there are a LOT), bacterial contaminates, viruses. They do all that without exposing yourself to plastic compounds synthetic filter media or glues.

Water Distillers also don’t drop in their effectiveness ratings as filters do with age. In other words your distiller doesn’t drop 30-40% in its removing like a filter does. You simply cannot get the complex chemical slurry removed from your water without a distiller.

Many of our customers have the impression that their bottled water delivery service is an adequate solution. This option has many flaws too. First off the water is stored in PLASTIC, long-term storage in plastic regardless of whether it is BPA free plastic is not advised. Water, especially pure water, will leach from plastic jugs. The water coolers found in countless homes and offices often harbor algaes that are rarely cleaned. In addition, they are constructed out of less than desirable materials.

The high upfront cost of investing in a quality distiller will quickly be paid back from the savings of bottled water as well. Home distilled water is the purest water available and a quality distiller will last for many, many years.

It’s a great choice to give your children Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil from a very young age, beginning usually around 6 months. When a baby is still breast feeding or using a bottle, it is easiest to give them Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil by Green Pasture in the Cinnamon Tingle or the Oslo Orange flavor. The Cinnamon Tingle is a strong cinnamon flavor and can sometimes be considered spicy. The Oslo Orange flavor is not spicy but is not as strong in flavor and doesn’t mask the fishy flavor as well. It comes with a syringe. Starting with just a small amount of Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil, 1 ml or less, put the syringe in the baby’s mouth and squirt it in. Immediately follow the squirt with either the breast or a bottle. Gradually work up to a dose of 2 ml for a baby younger than 1 year old, the dosage recommended by the Weston A Price Foundation.

Once your child is old enough to eat off of a spoon with ease, it is recommended that they switch to Blue Ice Royal Butter Oil and Fermented Cod Liver Oil blend, also from Green Pasture. Blue Ice Royal comes in multiple flavors and it will take experimenting to find the flavor right for you. For children, we strongly recommend that you try either the Cinnamon Tingle or the Chocolate Cream. The Cinnamon Tingle Blue Ice Royal Butter Oil and Fermented Cod Liver Oil is a strong cinnamon, similar to that of Big Red gum. It does have a small amount of stevia in it for sweetness. The Chocolate Cream does not have any sweetness in it and wouldn’t be considered spicy. The Chocolate Cream Blue Ice Royal can be sweetened with a drop of honey if needed.

When we started in business in 1998, there were a number of cod liver oil products on the market that were both high vitamin and high quality. The overwhelming majority of cod liver oil has historically been produced in northern Europe (Norway, Iceland, Denmark, etc) and that tradition continues today. In the early 2000’s many in the natural health field, including us at Renewed Health Supply, became concerned about a pending standardization of cod liver oil. Europe’s equivalent of the FDA had legislated a maximum fluctuation of vitamin from one bottle to the next that went into effect in 2006. Up until 2006 there were still a small number of manufacturers that were adding back in the cod vitamins at the end of the process. As one can imagine, nutrient levels with any fished or farmed product can vary significantly from month to month. Therefore, it became necessary for the cod oil producers in Europe to add back standardized vitamin D to the oils. We also saw a big shift take place in the market place as the focus shifted from fat soluble vitamin benefits to Omega fatty acid benefits (EPA and DHA). Currently the overwhelming majority of Cod Liver Oil that is found in the supermarket or health food stores is produced via distillation. When cod liver oil is processed by distillation, it is heated, carbon filtered, and deodorized . All of these damage the fatty acid chains of the oils making them susceptible to becoming rancid as well as yielding nutrient levels that are a fraction of what was contained in the liver itself.

Green Pasture was very forward thinking in seeing this pending issue as a threat to high vitamin cod liver oil availability. Green Pasture had been importing high vitamin cod liver oil from Scandinavia for years and understood it was only a matter of time before that source changed for what we all viewed as the worse. Green Pasture set about an exploratory process to commercially produce an unheated, fermented cod liver oil. This exploration into Fermented Cod Liver Oil was possible as Green Pasture was not based in Europe and was going to produce their oils within the United States. There were a lot of discoveries as Green Pasture set about producing an oil that had not been made in a long time. To be honest some of the early batches of this oil left us with the feeling that maybe the oil was best kept contained within the walls of a capsule and that a liquid version should be avoided. Holding true to a dedication to make this oil both a high nutrient content and palatable, the folks at Green Pasture pushed on to make a fairly consistent taste and preserve the integrity of the oil. Now to be fair, the oils do fluctuate from batch to batch with some being more aggressive than others and if taste is a major issue for you as a customer DO NOT buy the unflavored version. Fermented Cod Liver Oil is produced after months of fermentation in large containers. The livers themselves ferment which causes the oils to be released naturally. As a result Green Pasture's Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil is full of natural pigments and micro-nutrients that are absent in the distilled oils.  Green Pasture's Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil is a reddish brown and has a taste different from distilled cod liver oil, which is nearly always a light yellow hue. As for the stability of Cod liver oil, fermented oils are naturally stable at room temperature due to their vitamins remaining intact and their fatty acids not being damaged by heat whereas distilled oils need to be purchased in the refrigerated section, kept refrigerated, and almost always require a antioxidant additive such as vitamin E to prevent a rapid oxidation of the oil.

At the end of the day, the vitamin levels are hundreds of times higher in Green Pasture's Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil and the fatty acids have not been damaged by heat. However the consumer needs to expect that the traditional Fermented Cod Liver will vary in thickness, taste, color, smell. This variability is impossible to eliminate with an oil produced in traditional ways and that should give us some comfort in knowing that Green Pasture could have taken the easy road and simply imported low vitamin content cod liver oil.

Renewed Health Supply has been in business since 1998. Ryan Krumroy started the business because he was passionate about living a healthy lifestyle and wanted to share that passion with others.

Since 1998, Ryan got married and started a family.  Living a healthy lifestyle became more important.  Growing in knowledge of the health community and sharing it with others is what Renewed Health Supply is all about.

Renewed Health Supply is now run by both Ryan and his wife Tracey.  After some recent discussions, Ryan and Tracey decided that it's time to start sharing the knowledge they have gained over the years - thus the blog.

Our goal is to start answering questions that our customers ask us every day. We would love to hear what questions you have about our products and the health industry.  Please email us what you want to know!